The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1887-04-14
BRIGHAM'S GUIDE.
THE MORMON APOSTLES HISTORIC
JOURNEY ACROSS THE ROCKIES.

JOORNEf RChOSS HE ROCklES.
A Veteran Frontiersman Tells How He
Led the Mormon Chief Over the
Mountains and Into the Valley of Salt
Lake.
John Y. Nelson, the guide who in 1916
piloted Brigham Young across the plains
and over the Rocky mountains to the site
of the present capital of Mormondom, is
one of the most interesting of the strange
band of pioneers and savages now depict
ing the perils and pleasures of frontier
life for the delectation of effete fasteners
with Buffalo Bill.
He was seated ON a camp stool in one of
the score or so of tents that line the sides
of the broad upper corridor at Madison
Square garden, his wife, Sioux squaw,
squatted at his feet industriously stitching
with Shreds of buffalo tendon for thread,
boy of II stretched on u couch of deer
skins in one corner and copper colored
lassic of sleeping peacefully on bank
of blankets in another corner. Others of
their dusky brood rOmped in the long pas
sage outside with the papooses of the
Pawnee or the Sioux and came at their
white fathers bidding to shake hands
with the visitor. Bright eyed, black
haired, blithe and quick, the elements of
savage and civilized blood seemed
strangely blended in their natures. There
had been nine children of this marriage,
the old trapper said, of whom five were
living, the eldest, a girl of Is, pursuing
her studies in a Brooklyn boarding school.
TO earn provision for their support and
education he has turned his back Oh his
loved mountains.
IN THE FALL OF 1916.
sit was late in the fall of 1916, think"
Nelson began as he Lit his pipe and showed
back his broad sombrero. 81 was at
Cottonwood Springs, Neb., living with an
old Mexican half breed, who knew every
inch of the Rockies like q book. We
were doing nothing in particular and
ready for a job when Brigham Young
came along and asked my Mexican friend
and myself to be his guides across the
Rockies, promising us good pay. He had
four companions, Mormon elders, / think,
but l cannot remember their names.
Seven in all, we started with two emf
grant wagons, one of them loaded with
flour, bacon, coffee and biscuit, enough
for two years. supply. | don't believe
Brigham had any idea when he started
Just where he was going and when he
would get back It was a sort of pros
pecting trip. He and the elders called
each other brother and the old man was
q good natured, jolly sort of fellow. He
talked good deal of religious lingo, but he
was not the Sunday school, pious Jonah
kind: would say damn it. just the same as
l would, and played a good hand at euchre.
1 was quite young fellow in those days,
and as the old Mexican didn't speak much
English, Brigham talked q good deal with
me and tried to convert me to Mormonism.
''He was about 40, well set up and with
q big, strong head and neck. 1 didn't
take much stock in his arguments defend
ing polygamy, which 10 Smith had recently
introduced as revelation among the
saints. But Brigham gave me the idea
of O man who was pretty firm in his
opinion and actually believed what he
preached. .....
eve didn't hurry ourselves much, max
ing only about twenty miles day with
the wagons, pitching our tents for three
or four days at q time when we got into a
likely region where game was plenty and
exploring the country for miles around.
/ don't think we met white man all the
way across. There were lots of Indians,
but they didn't trouble us, just coming
into camp to trade off fresh meat or skins
for bacon and coffee. Toward Christmas
we struck Hams fork, in western Ne
braska, after making a journey of nearly
1000 miles. There we were showed up
until the spring. ...
SNOW FORTY FEET DEEP.
"That was a particularly hard winter,
and the snow was forty feet deep in places
where it had drifted over the canyon. But
we didn't suffer; provisions were plenty,
there was lots of game, and when we
couldn't get water we got snow and melt
ed it. Our camp at Hams fork was
pitched in a sheltered valley, and we got
all the elk, antelope and bear we could
shoot. $685.
"Late i'm the spring, when the snow had
melted, we struck camp and started
straight up the mountain about forty
miles, Right up on the top of the noun
tain we found large lake fed by living
spring chuck full of trout that beat any
thing in the world. The smallest of them
was about two feet long and weighed five
or six pounds, and the flavor The
trapper smacked his lips as the recollec-
ton of the gustatory qualification of forty
years before arose in his mind.
Brigham was all the time spying out
the lay of the land, and as he looked from
the top of the mountain over the level
stretch of desert nearly fifty miles away,
he said: The promised land is in sight. ;
We made our way down the mountain
without any accident worth mentioning
and when we struck the water now known
as Salt Lake Brigham swallowed q mouth
full and named it the Great Salt Lake.
Then we struck out about six miles to the
northwest and Brigham Young stopped
suddenly in the midst of the valley and
shouted: This is the spot; this is the place
revealed to me by the Great Spirit in a
dream long ago. Here we will build the
New Jerusalemp
1--WE stayed in the neighborhood about
six weeks. Brigham staked out the place
so that we could find it again easily and
made a sort of map of it. Then we started
back to Cottonwood Springs, which we
reached late in the summer. Brigham
and his friends went on to Nauvoo, Ils.,
and went off on deer hunt with my
Indian friends. Next year Brigham took
a large party of Mormons over, and Salt
Lake City was built on the very spot to
which guided him. New York World
Ipteryisw.